Roger Rabbit Scenes

As I mentioned before in a previous post, the scene above was the first one I animated on Who Framed Roger Rabbit ? I had never worked on animation/live action scenes before. It was pretty scary to get started.
The ostrich was less of a problem, since we don't see her feet contacting the ground. Frames later the full figure frog does show that contact, but luckily the pattern of the floor tiles gave me something to register him to.
The following, very long scene turned out to be the most difficult one (technically). A lot of characters involved, starting with the brooms from Fantasia holding on to real brooms, which had been manipulated by puppeteers. All on ones, and to the beat of the music. Then this crazy pelican postman shows up on a live action bicycle, loosing control. He zips of screen with a fish in his beak, before the camera catches up with him on the ground after he crashed, flying mail all around him. That part was animated by Dave Spafford.
Bob Hoskins then bounces into a Fantasia Hippo. He proceeds with his walk on the Maroon Studio's backlot. There is a cattle call, starting with a sort of Preston blair kind of a cow, then Clarabelle Cow and so on.
A big pig head enters the scene, walking in the opposite direction. He was fun to do, just this happy, big guy, minding his own business. There are more characters Hoskins encounters like the goons from Sleeping Beauty, but I didn't do those. At the end of the scene we catch up with the Hippo, who is getting ready to have lunch, but as she sits down the bench crashes, sending a man flying.

All this was pretty labour intense stuff, so we were all shocked to find out that the live action photostats for the scene had been printed with the wrong fielding. The actual live action footage showed the camera a little further back with more image around the frame. For the love of God, we thought...now what?? My animation just did not fit into the live action. There was talk that I might have to redraw the whole scene over, in proportion to properly sized photostats.
Luckily another solution was found. ILM, who did all of our final compositing, zoomed into the live action footage a little to compensate for the mistake.
So when you watch the scene again, keep in mind that there was more scenery in the shot, but we don't see it. The drama of filmmaking!!!

Milt Kahl venting in Dallas

A lovely portrait of Robin Hood and Maid Marian from the ending of the movie. As so often with his characters, Milt drew Robin ever so slightly cross-eyed, which for some unbeknown reason actually adds appeal.
I am posting a 1973 newspaper article from the Dallas Times Herald, which originally appeared on Chris Sobienak's blog. So here Milt is in Dallas promoting the film, and talking to a bunch of journalists.

Writer Susan Barton doesn't quite know what to make of this outspoken Disney animator. For starters she confuses Milt's Tigger with Kellogg's Tony, the tiger...hysterical!
But as usual Milt speaks his mind about issues he faces at the studio, like the use of live action and a new book that had just been published, in which Walt Disney is portrayed in an unflattering light.
You can tell from his comments, that Milt had the utmost respect and admiration for his boss.

And where are those character drawings now...?

Saludos Amigos

This month seventy-three years ago Disney's Saludos Amigos premiered. Two years later in 1945 the second of the South American features The Three Caballeros opened.
Frank Thomas was the only animator who travelled with Walt Disney and other artist, known as El Groupo, to several South American countries in order to study and sketch local folklore.
Frank drew this early design for a feature then named Carioca Cocktail 1941, featuring an armadillo and a monkey, characters that didn't make it into the final film.

James Bodrero's sketches for the El Goucho Goofy section were used as publicity material for the film. I love these, Bodrero's work has so much life.

 

 Woolie Reitherman animated most of the footage with Goofy and the horse. Look at the insane detail on both characters. We are talking twenty-four of such drawings per second!!
And Woolie really worked the positions over and over to achieve just what he wanted to see on the screen.

 

Beautiful character and background studies for the Pedro section.

Another scene that does not appear in the film.

 

A great page for the magazine Good Housekeeping. Beautifully drawn and staged, based on Milt Kahl's animation for the Lake Titicaca section.

An early concept drawing of Jose Carioca by Herb Ryman.

A spectacular sketch by J. P. Miller depicting Mary Blair interacting with locals.

If you want to find out more about Disney's research trip to South America, watch this great documentary by Ted Thomas and Kuniko Okubo:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TVTRYC?keywords=walt%20and%20el%20grupo&qid=1454999783&ref_=sr_1_1&s=movies-tv&sr=1-1

A Blast from the Past

I was surprised to see some of my earliest character designs for The Black Cauldron being offered at Van Eaton Galleries. I haven't seen these sketches since I made them, around 1981.
Boy, if this doesn't take me back to my early days at Disney. I loved working with felt pen and magic marker colors.
Other things come to mind: LA was very smoggy in those days during summer, my English wasn't very good,  and I rode a bicycle to the studio from my apartment in North Hollywood. (Didn't have a driver's license yet.) I remember ignoring a traffic light and making a swift right turn on my bike from Magnolia Blvd. on to Buena Vista St. without stopping. A policeman saw this and yelled after me. I thought, this is it, I am going to get deported.
Funny, the things you remember..

Here is the link to Van Eaton Galleries:

http://www.vegalleries.com/newart.html

Madame Medusa Outtakes

These unfinished Medusa drawings by Milt Kahl were a Christmas gift to myself. Heritage Auctions offered them recently, and there are certain things ...you just have to have.
It doesn't get any better than this: Milt Kahl's rough thoughts on paper. Sharp, thin pencil lines searching for the best way to express the character's emotions. What's crazy about Milt's rough pass at a scene is the fact that he defines certain things very roughly and others extremely delicately, in the same drawing!!
And the pencil just seems to dance on the surface of the sheet of paper.
A once in a century kind of talent!

More Medusa roughs here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/03/happy-birthday-milt-kahl.html

and here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/11/madame-medusa.html

Clock Cleaners

Clock Cleaners from 1937 is one of my favorite Disney shorts. The story provides plenty of great gags, and the character animation is incredible. The layouts involve dramatic down shots, which can leave you with a fear for heights.
I remember that as a kid I had a shortened Super-8 film copy of the film, and during a home screening my father mentioned that several shots made him feel dizzy.

These beautiful cels show their age and some damage, but it amazes me they survived at all after so many decades. Look at those colors!
Heritage Auctions offered these treasures a while ago.

What never fails to impress me is that the world these cartoon characters inhabited was logically and realistically depicted. The backgrounds are believable renderings of skyscrapers.
For some reason more recent versions of a "cartoon" world, wether Toon Town or TV episodes featuring cartoony characters all show wacky perspectives, crooked buildings, horizon lines that make no sense etc.
The reason my dad felt dizzy watching Clock Cleaners is due to the fact that Disney's worlds might be fantasy, but they sure have a way of getting you involved, acrophobia and all.

 

Check out this previously posted interview with Clock Cleaners layout artist Ken O'Connor about cheating perspective to get a certain effect across:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/04/ken-oconnor-on-cheating-perspective.html

Lady & the Tramp Art

An animation colleague of mine said this about the film Lady & the Tramp: "Oh, it's just a soup opera with dogs. Boy gets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl in the end."
Be that as it may, I think the movie's story is compelling and in support of rich characters. I remember listening to a Walt Disney interview, in which he said this about the film: "Lady & the Tramp turned out well. We felt it, we felt the personalities."
Milt Kahl was equally fond of the film: "L & T is a good movie, I did a lot (of animation) in that. Of course the best thing in it is Eric Larson's dog, the one with the Veronica Lake hairdo...I forget her name now."
Publicity illustrations like the one above are a hit and miss, when it comes to Disney advertising art. Fully rendered, painterly versions of the characters can look cheesy when in the hands if the wrong artist. But this one is on model, and the dogs' fur is skillfully rendered. It looks charming.

Frank Thomas roughed out this composition of Lady and Jock, as they react to Tramp's presence. Their emotions couldn't be more different: Jock is annoyed with the intruder, while Lady is still reflecting on the way she was treated by Mrs Darling.
On the surface this is a very sketchy drawing, but it is very clear nonetheless. Frank's feelings on paper.

This cel represents an early version of Lady's facial appearance. Her eyes are surrounded by a lightly painted area, which was dropped for the final version. (I do recall seeing this scene as a stand out in a screening of the film way back.)

The corrected version as seen in most prints of the film.

Milt Kahl took "realistic" squash and stretch to a whole new level when he animated dialogue scenes with Trusty. His huge muzzle gave Milt the opportunity to exaggerate follow through motion as well.
You can tell, he had a ball animating this character.

Joe Grant came up with this intriguing sketch, depicting Lady and the film's evil cats Si and Am.

These cats presented a real design/animation problem. Ward Kimball started animation, but the footage turned out too zany for the film's style. Milt Kahl reset the felines' design, and animators like John Sibley, Bill Justice and Bob Carlson took care of the final animation.

A clean up model sheet of Peg (whose name escaped Milt), comprised of drawings by then clean up artist Burny Mattinson.

Animator  Ed Aardal had his hands full animating this action scene toward the end of he film. Realistic horses freaking out, beautifully executed.

A color study for the romantic sequence by Eyvind Earle.

And a gorgeous background from the opening sequence, I believe painted by Claude Coats.
Movies like Lady & the Tamp seem to age beautifully, there is a degree of love and dedication missing from today's animated output.

Previous posts you might like about Lady & the Tramp:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/06/one-year-anniversary.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/07/tramp.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/10/tony-and-joe.html

Some Images Heritage Auctions, Howard Lowery